The well-watered lawn is a symbol of Los Angeles' past.in this seriesHere, we spotlight gardens with alternative low-water landscapes built for the future.
At the top of the roller-coaster hills of Highland Park, Tomas Zamora and her husband Raul Rojas have two stunning views of the hills of Pasadena to the east and the winding expanse of native plants, succulents and vegetables in their backyard. I'm enjoying the scenery. In the past, there were only abandoned cars on dirt roads.
It's been nearly a decade of evolution, according to Zamora and Rojas, but their backyard now features a deck bordered with pots of colorful succulents and a wide open water feature made of flagstones and river pebbles. There are sex trails and fragrant native California trees and flowers. Shrub. Zamora said there are raised beds full of vegetables, a potted lemon tree and a few red-flowering Australian grevilleas and South African leucadendrons left over from earlier in the landscaping journey. “Because I love hummingbirds.” “We couldn't bear to take out the flowers because they would fight over them.”
But almost everything else in the backyard is dedicated to California native plants, along with the terraced planters and parkway out front. That passion was inspired by the Theodore Payne Foundation's Native Plant Garden Tour in 2015, when the couple observed what beautiful gardens others had. Made from native perennials, shrubs, and wildflowers.
“That was the beginning of our journey to ‘Frankenstein’ our landscape,” Zamora said with a laugh. “The tour helped us get an idea of what elements would look good in the garden. We did it ourselves, so it wasn't a formal process. We knew what we wanted and how it would fit. I found a place and just winged it.”
They grew it so well that their home is now a regular part of Theodore Payne's Native Plant Garden Tour, which will be held on April 13 and 14 this year. (Tickets are sold out online, but at the time of this article they could be purchased in person for $55 at the foundation's office in Sun Valley, Tuesday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) (Children under 16 are free).
The couple's garden is full of bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators, and even has chairs and flower-shaded benches where visitors can sit and take in the view. This space exudes tranquility and invites wanderers. And it's clearly a labor of love for both Zamora and Rojas. “Every Sunday is gardening day and we enjoy the process,” Rojas said. “This is our happy place, a place for exercise and meditation. And who will do the weeding? Us!”
A butter knife rests on top of a neat potting stand, ready to take care of any unwanted sprouts. “The best weeding tool is a butter knife,” Rojas says privately. “My grandmother taught me that. Just stick a knife into the root, pinch the weed with two fingers, and pull it up.”
It's clear this technique is working because weeds, the bane of most gardens, including native plant landscapes, are visible. Nowhere In this garden. The plantings are jumbled but meticulously arranged, giving it a Disney-like feel, with pots of succulents filling the front porch and Mediterranean plants such as blue-blooming rosemary and evergreen currants on the terrace. It is full of native plants.Ribes viburnum)island alum root (Heuchera Maxima), fragrant blue pitcher sage (lepequinia fragrance), bush sunflower (Enseria California) and a hybrid of island soba (Eriogonum x Brisianum)
Everything looks perfect until the narrow parkway is beautifully intertwined with poppies and other native wildflowers. But the process was fraught with challenges, Zamora and Rojas said. “We learned a lot along the way,” Rojas said.
Both are from California, and while their families enjoyed gardening and the outdoors, they were raised around traditional plants such as roses, fruit trees, and succulents. Rojas laughed at that. When he was a child, his parents made him weed.
When Mr. Zamora, an art department coordinator for TV shows such as “No Good Deed,” bought the 1923 bungalow in 2009, its narrow backyard was filled with hard dirt and three junked cars. Thankfully they were removed before he moved in in 2010. Before meeting Rojas, he focused more on the interior of the house and dabbled in planting a few flower beds outside. At the time, he said, he was focused on showy, drought-tolerant plants like statice and Pride of Madeira, a fast-growing perennial with giant purple flowers native to the Portuguese island of Madeira.
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1. A South African Leucadendron 'Jester' grows on the wall of a neighbor's garage and against the background of an artistically displayed paint can. The leucadendron is a holdover from Zamora's early landscaping efforts and was left in because it was very popular with hummingbirds. 2. (Dainia Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
“I didn't know these plants were invasive along the mid-coast,” he says. “I just planted it because it looked pretty, and I had seen it elsewhere so I knew it would grow.”
He added leucadendrons and grevilleas, which have drought-tolerant flowers. But he also planted white sage (Salvia Apiana) That's because during a local hike, he admired the silvery green leaves of one of Southern California's most famous native plants.
After Rojas moved in 2012, the couple became more serious about their garden, visiting plant stores and nurseries for ideas. In 2015, while visiting Atwater Village Potted, they saw a flyer for Theodore's Paine Tour and decided to give it a try. Rojas said it was easy to buy tickets for tours back then, and “tickets never sold out like they do today.” And the gardens they saw eventually gave their landscaping a clear focus on native plants.
“This was one of the best decisions we ever made,” Zamora said.
But once we started adding native plants in earnest, the challenges began. They amended the heavy clay soil with compost and other additives. This is typically done to plant traditional landscape ornamentals and food. However, after many of the newly planted plants died, their gardens mostly had heavy, slow-draining clay soils, and native plants grew in well-drained native soils rather than in rich garden plots. I found out that it likes soil.
“I learned that from Theodore Payne's 'Place in Place' class, which teaches you which plants work best depending on your situation,” Zamora said. “And she also used Calscape to see if the plants we were interested in could tolerate clay soil. That's how we added plants we wanted but didn't have a place to thrive. I made plans to do so.”
They grow plants in pots that don't like clay, such as woolly blue curls, which have a very sweet smell.Trichostema lanatum) near the side entrance. Once established, they are easily killed by large amounts of water. White sage grew alongside a very happy San Clemente Island bushmallow (Malacothamnus clementinus) has grown from a one-gallon container into a huge shrub covered in flowers along the east fence.
According to Zamora, there was actually no formal design. They tried something and if it didn't work, they tried something else. Initially, he added two raised beds for vegetables, but eventually he removed one to create more space for paths and planting native species.
By adding a pebble walkway, we were able to solve the problem of runoff and standing water in our backyard. “We have no bioswale [to capture rainwater until it drains into the soil] “I wish I had known about that during my walk,” Zamora said. “But now we've leveled the area so the water doesn't pool, and it looks like the rocks hold the water and keep it from running off.” It just seeps into the ground through the pavers. . ”
Another helpful resource is regular visits to the California Botanical Garden in Claremont. This botanical garden is the state's largest botanical garden dedicated exclusively to native plants. “It's a peaceful place and it's very exciting to see the plants in their habitat,” Zamora said. “We went there a lot during the pandemic because it was such a great place to walk around.”
They are also regular customers at Hardy Californians, a pop-up native plant nursery facility in the Sierra Madre. Rojas, an entertainment publicist, also volunteered there during the 2023 Hollywood Actors Strike and became an even bigger convert to the diversity and beauty of native plants.
“The neighbors have been very positive,” Rojas said. “People walking around the neighborhood always ask us what we've planted and what we recommend for certain situations, so we put little signs on every plant.”
The big fig tree in the park outside my front door has died. The damage was probably caused by excavating the road to repair water pipes. Zamora said since it's a city-owned tree, city staff will have to remove it, “but we'll definitely talk to them about replacing it with something native.” .
Over the years, they have become much more optimistic about the cycle of life in their garden. “We learned that gardening is a process and some plants are better than others,” Rojas said. “We were often upset, like, 'Oh, this is dead!' — but at this point, we're like, 'Oh, we didn't like that place.' Now we look at it simply as an opportunity for new plantings. ”